In this blog's inaugural post, I introduced the term Moneyball Marketing. I now want to take a few minutes to define it.

The definition will relate closely to the Demand Generation function within marketing so I will start there. I was recently asked by a colleague, "What's the difference between Demand Generation and Lead Generation?" The difference is stark. To answer I explained that lead generation implies a myopic, top-of-the-funnel activity, while demand generation goes both much broader and deeper – if you think of business as having Supply and Demand, then the Demand side of the business encompasses all possible avenues for the creation of new revenue and a “lead” is just one piece of the process for one of these avenues.

Demand Generation also includes the programs to nurture those leads; the systems that define the qualification of the lead as marketing qualified, the programs that enable sales to be most effective with turning that lead to an opportunity, and that opportunity to a win; the customer marketing programs to nurture and expand that customer relationship over time; as well as other avenues to generate incremental business including additional channels, referral sources or influencers.

So putting pen to paper (or cursor to rich text editor, as the case may be), my definition of Moneyball Marketing is partnering with sales to build measurable and predictable MQL flow through all available sources of new business, measured by MQL and Opportunity attainment, pipeline impact and business growth.

Yes that works as a definition.

Marketing and sales partnership – check.

Measurement and moving to predictive – check.

Moving beyond leads or even MQL stats to driving pipeline impact and business growth – check.

So that can work as our “dictionary definition”, and beyond that let me share three key behaviors of a Moneyball Marketer:

(1) You run marketing like a business

I find this to be the most fundamental concept. Simply put, when making decisions, you are looking at it to answer the question “What’s best for the business?”. Not what’s best for marketing, not what’s best for you as an individual, or your boss, or your direct reports. Moneyball Marketing is about making well thought out, data driven business decisions every single day.

(2) You consider all opportunities for revenue growth

Moneyball Marketing and Demand Generation are liberating as they consist of all possible avenues to increase revenue, so a partial list:

Programs to acquire new leads and nurture them
Maximizing conversion rates through buying process including MQI-to-MQL, MQL-to-Opportunity (e.g. an Evaluation Process) and Win Rate
Efficient and effective systems to support marketing and sales during the revenue process
Digital Marketing programs to maximize impact of website as a demand generation tool
Outbound sales prospecting programs
Programs via channel - driving demand gen programs through channel partners
Customer marketing to drive additional customer business through customer education and communications

(3) You are an advocate for Sales within Marketing

Sales management and reps are incredibly busy, so the Moneyball Marketer has the opportunity to take the overall objectives of sales, which is to maximize revenue short term and long term, and add strategic value and be the advocate for sales within marketing, allowing sales management to focus on driving results for the month & quarter while getting their interests represented within the Sales & Marketing organization.

Next time I'll share the Seven Reasons I love Moneyball Marketing.